


Seven Iterations of the Good Ship SS M'Lady

by comradeocean



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Drabble Sequence, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:09:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comradeocean/pseuds/comradeocean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One sentence Arya/Gendry prompt challenge that turned into full-blown drabbles because I am terrible at following instructions.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seven Iterations of the Good Ship SS M'Lady

**Romance**

He woos her with ringing steel and fire and ice, molten forms of a desperate hunger solidifed into forced detachment upon contact with air, with the world outside his body; she woos him with sparring matches in the Godswood, a dance for just the two of them without any spectators allowed. They make whole lives for themselves in the pauses between swinging swords.

\------

**AU**

Syrio the doorman had winked at her when she collided into him running out of the elevator. _Quiet as a shadow_ , he had whispered seemingly at random before Arya fled.  
THAT MAN IS NOT TO BE TRUSTED. I SOMETIMES THINK THAT HE MUST BE A CUBAN COMMUNIST WAITING FOR A RICH PERSON TO BE DRUNK ENOUGH DURING A BLIZZARD SO HE CAN ACCIDENTALLY LOCK THEM OUT AND NOT GET BLAMED FOR THEIR DEATH. BEING QUIET WOULDN'T HELP VERY MUCH, HE WOULD JUST HAVE TO BE VERY OBSERVANT.  
Suddenly she got an uncomfortable prickly feeling that Syrio knew more about her than he let on, and slammed the notebook shut. But for the rest of her spy route that day, she noticed where the shadows fell, and tried hard to melt into them. The crates behind the hardware store gave her the perfect shadowy vantage point to watch Gendry while he completed his shift unloading the new inventory.  
GENDRY'S POSTURE HAS GOTTEN WORSE SINCE HE STARTED WORKING HERE. HE DIDN'T TELL ME ABOUT TAKING ANOTHER AFTER SCHOOL JOB, MAYBE BECAUSE HE'S ASHAMED. BUT THEN AGAIN HE DOESN'T TELL ME ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS HE THINKS I'M TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND. SOMETIMES GENDRY LOOKS AS THOUGH HE'S BEEN UP ALL NIGHT. HE HAS FUNNY LITTLE DRY THINGS AROUND HIS EYES. I WORRY ABOUT HIM.

\------

**Friendship**

When Gendry saw Arya approaching, he nodded at her but didn't stop working.  
He had been grouchy since Lucan was killed. Arya largely kept clear of him to avoid the pangs of guilt, but today she had finally found some small way to make it up to him. She waited until he rested his hammer at last and turned to her.  
"What do you want?"  
"Brought you some food" she said gruffly, holding forward a package.  
"Thanks, but I already ate."  
Gendry picked up his hammer again but dropped it with a clang when he saw what she had unwrapped.  
"Seven hells, Arya, that's a whole roasted pigeon! I haven't seen one of those since King's Landing."  
"I stole it. Hot Pie cooked it," she said nonchalantly.  
"Are you sure that was the right order of events?"  
"I'm not even going to answer that." A hint of a smile ghosted over her face. "Happy name day, Gendry"

\------

**Hurt/comfort**

She took one look at his hand and angrily crossed her arms. "Finish up and meet me in the Godswood."  
Gendry refused to meet her eyes. "Maester Tarly has already looked at it, m'lady. I thank m'lady for her concern."  
"Then you would do well not to mistake your lady's orders for suggestions," she spat back.  
Clenching his jaw, he inclined his head. "As you wish, m'lady." He paused. "Anything else, m'lady?"  
Arya glared at him and left the forge without replying.

True to his word, Gendry did eventually show up. She had climbed one of the trees to wait for him unseen. Once Bran had always been able to perch on a higher branch, for longer, while her legs cramped up until she fell out, the only of their contests she ever conceded to him. But Arya has long since learned how to be quiet, how to be still.  
She watched Gendry as he waited. She wanted him to wait a while longer, as she had waited for him. She wanted to see him grow impatient, let agitation slip through the stoic mask he wore around her since their fight. But he had just looked around in resignation and wearily sat himself down by the pond, trailing his fingers in the water.

After a moment, she saw him cradle his burnt hand against his chest, and gritting his teeth, splash a few drops of water on it with his free hand. His gasp of pain twisted something sharp inside her chest and she bit down on her lip to keep from wincing in sympathy. As Gendry was about to dip his whole hand in the pond, she suddenly cried out "Wait!" without even meaning to and wished she could bite back the words.

He looked up in surprise, and there was nothing to do but scramble down. _Stupid, stupid_ she admonished herself as she climbed. This was why she hated being around him. He made her unpredictable, forget years of training that should have become second nature.

"You need to clean it," Arya said abruptly once she was on the ground again.  
"That's what I was doing," he said.  
"Not with that." She knelt down and removed a small jar from her tunic, unwinding the length of clean cloth wrapped around it. "I brought this back from Braavos. They call it numbness water because it cleans out burns and takes away the pain."  
"It doesn't even really hurt," he muttered.  
"Sam told me you refused Milk of the Poppy because it would make you too drowsy to work."  
Gendry shrugged, "A blacksmith needs to earn his keep."  
Arya couldn't keep herself from shouting, "A blacksmith needs both hands! A blacksmith could die from a wound gone bad!" She swallowed hard to clamp down her hysteria. "Sansa is usually better at this sort of thing," She said stiffly.  
"Sansa isn't the kind of lady who climbs trees to spy on her patients and then shouts at them when she's trying to nurse them back to health, no."  
"Shut up," Arya said automatically, but found that she was smiling despite herself. "I'm just going to dress the bandage because it'll hurt too much to apply directly at first."  
He nodded, holding up his arm.  
She brisky wrapped his hand, mindful of his slow careful breaths. "Come find me tomorow morning and I'll change the bandages."  
"You don't have to do this," he said.  
"I know." Arya finished knotting the bandage and stood up. She turned to leave, but bent down and whispered by his ear, "I want to."  
Before he could answer, she was gone. 

\------

**Fluff**

A kitten had taken to sleeping in the forge, probably because it was so warm. It was dozing now, nestled in the crook of Gendry's neck. Arya looked longingly at the pile of furs covering both of them, and carefully perched at the edge of the cot. Even from this distance, she could feel the heat emanating from his body through her nightgown, an even more concentrated warmth than the rest of the forge that made her want to curl her toes. She was a child of winter, and the cold never used to bother her, but there was something about the icy ruins of Winterfell that chilled her to the bones, especially at night. The hot springs that once warmed her chambers had long ago seeped away through the cracked and broken stones. She found herself to loathe the confining hours she had to spend in the dark cold room, taking instead to wandering the halls and grounds at night, inevitably ending up at the forge.  
"Gendry," she whispered.  
He shifted at the sound of her voice, still half asleep.  
"You again."  
Hesitating, she nervously fingered the edge of her gown.  
"Well, what are you waiting for?" A sleepy smile tugged at the corners of his mouth as he moved over and lifted up the furs for her.  
The kitten made an indignant yowl, then stalked up and down the cot before curling up against her foot.  
"Who's your new friend?" she asked, nudging the kitten, which illicited another meow.  
His chest hummed pleasantly against her back as he laughed quietly. "That little troublemaker? I just call her Cat."  
"I knew a Cat once. Cat of the Canals."  
"Did you?" Gendry mumbled. His soft breaths against the back of her neck was hypnotic.  
"In Braavos." She waited for his questions but Gendry just wrapped his arms around her and burrowed his nose in her hair. Arya breathed out a sigh of relief. "Some day I will tell you all about it."  
"Looking forward to it, m'lady," he whispered back.

\------

**Angst**

Gendry retreats from her, further and further with every proposal she receives and then promptly refuses. She grows harder, more angry and abrupt with each suitor. This merely confuses Jon, who stares searchingly into her eyes, willing her to explain. Sometimes, she feels a flicker of understanding from Sansa, but there is too much unsaid between them, too much distance. The night she learns of his departure for The Wall, she dreams her wolf dreams again. But in the morning it is Sansa, not Nymeria, gently wiping away the half-dried tears streaking down her face that she had unknowingly shed in her sleep. She never cries for him again.

\------

**Smut**

Clenching at Arya's hips to drive himself deeper inside her, Gendry comes with a shuddering grunt. When he pulls her down for a kiss, she growls into his lips and wiggles impatiently against him, still unsatisfied. Laughing, he flips her under him, and hooks her legs over his shoulder. He gets to work, alternatingly running his thumb along her folds and tonguing the hot needy centre of her desire, where her juices mingled with his own salty release.  
Her moans get more breathless until her hand tightly grip his shoulder, stopping him. "Come up here."  
He shifts to hold her against his chest, murmuring softly "Don't howl now, or you'll wake the entire castle" as his deft fingers continue stroking and dipping into her. Her only response is to nip at his glistening lower lip, groaning and drawing him into a deep kiss as she tastes both of them. Suddenly buckling against him, she stills his hand with her own as she gives a wordless cry, waves of pleasure finally overtaking her.

**Author's Note:**

> The AU is Arya as Harriet M. Welsch and Gendry as combination of Sport/one of the Dei Santi grocery boys JUST GO WITH IT OK (Hot Pie is definitely Little Joe Curry but I couldn't fit him in)


End file.
